Wireless communication devices continue to evolve to provide users with higher data throughput based on newer generation wireless communication protocols using various radio access technologies, and to provide users with increased functionality integrating various features in a multi-capable device. A wireless communication device can include support for a Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) wireless communication protocol, e.g. LTE Releases 8 and 9, current LTE-Advanced (also referred to as LTE-A) Releases 10 and 11, and future LTE-Advanced (also referred to as LTE-B) Releases 12 and beyond. Higher data throughput provided by an access network subsystem (e.g., an evolved Node B, also referred to as an eNodeB or eNB) of an LTE/LTE-Advanced wireless network to a wireless communication device can be boosted at least in part by using multiple carriers simultaneously in a configuration known as carrier aggregation. The wireless communication device can include radio frequency (RF) wireless circuitry that provides for simultaneous reception of RF signals from two or more cells of the eNodeB, each cell using a different RF carrier centered at a different frequency. For mobile wireless communication devices, RF communication channel characteristics can vary as the wireless communication device moves within and through different cells of the LTE/LTE-Advanced wireless network (as well as through overlapping cells of wireless networks that use alternative radio access technologies (RATs), e.g., 3GPP Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) wireless networks, 3GPP Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) wireless networks, and/or 3GPP2 Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) wireless networks.) The wireless communication device can be configured by the eNodeB of the LTE/LTE-Advanced wireless network to stop reception of downlink signals from the eNodeB, either periodically or a-periodically, and to measure signals received from other cells that use radio frequency carriers different from the cells of the eNodeB currently serving the wireless communication device. This gap in data reception from the serving cells of the eNodeB can be referred to as a “measurement gap” during which the wireless communication device can measure cells that use carriers on other frequencies (inter-freq measurements) and also measure cells that use other radio access technologies (inter-RAT measurements).
Wireless communication devices that do not support carrier aggregation, e.g., that include wireless circuitry for only one RF carrier, necessarily can listen to only one cell at a time, and thus downlink data reception from an associated eNodeB need be halted during the measurement gaps to permit signal reception from another cell using a different RF carrier. Present versions of the 3GPP LTE-Advanced wireless communication protocols specify that data reception on all carriers provided to a wireless communication device that uses carrier aggregation for reception on multiple carriers simultaneously be halted for all carriers during the measurement gap time period, thereby allowing for an RF signal chain in the wireless communication device to be tuned to another RF carrier to listen for and measure received signals used for measurement reporting to the eNodeB. For a wireless communication device having multiple RF signal chains that can receive data and/or listen and measure signals from multiple cells simultaneously, using only one RF signal chain during a measurement gap time period can idle RF wireless circuitry that could otherwise be used for parallel signal reception and/or measurement. Thus, multiple cell measurement and data reception in wireless communication devices can be improved upon.